


One Night in Monte Carlo...

by Rehfan



Category: Iron Man (Movies), James Bond (Craig movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bromance, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Street Racing, dangerous driving, high speeds, tony stark is a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 04:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3474242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehfan/pseuds/Rehfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark and James Bond have just been released from the police station in Monte Carlo.<br/>Now they need to blow off some steam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On Your Marks

**Author's Note:**

> READING SUGGESTION: Chapters 2 and 3 are best read while listening to Van Halen's "Panama".

James Bond had never been so angry. M and Q seemed disinterested in getting him out of the Monte Carlo police station and once he was released, he couldn’t wait to get home to wring their necks. He made his way to his Aston Martin DB10 and eased it down Rue Suffren Reymond toward Boulevard Albert 1er. Just before he got to the intersection, his car was cut off by a cherry red model vehicle he couldn’t identify. Its sloped bonnet lead back to a rear engine compartment. Its lines seemed retro-Eighties but the paint job, rims, and the sound of the engine screamed modern power. Unfortunately, it was a single lane road and he had no opportunity to pull up beside the supercar until they attained the Boulevard Albert 1er.

He sounded his horn, lowering his window to encourage conversation between him and the unidentified driver. Bond was hoping the driver would be foolish enough to roll his window down and confront him. He was pleasantly rewarded.

“Look pal, I’ve just had a hell of a night and I really need to get another drink before my hangover pounces on me. Can we cut the macho asshole bullshit and just let bygones be bygones? Didn’t mean to cut you off. Just trying to get back to the party, okay?” The man had an unmistakable American accent and an even more unmistakable face: Tony Stark of Stark Industries was a very familiar visage - especially in Bond’s world. Clearly, the Iron Man didn’t know who he was and Bond was glad for it.

Bond was just angry enough that two significant things happened: first, he never wanted Tony Stark to arrogantly leave his sight without some comeuppance. And second, he needed to get out some aggression or he might find himself without a job or worse - back in jail. So James Bond did the only thing he could do in a case such as this: he shifted into neutral, drifting along, and revved his engine.

“Let’s see what your heap can really do, shall we?” challenged Bond.

Stark raised an eyebrow. “You serious?” He swiveled his head from the road to Bond and back. “You want to do this? Here? Now?”

“Too chicken?”

Stark’s trademark grin was firmly in place. “Dude, I already beat the crap out of someone on this track a few years ago. You may have seen it? And let’s face it: he was way scarier than you.”

“So you are frightened.”

Stark stopped his car right in the middle of the street. The night enveloped the vehicle, a wet cherry color in the middle of chocolate midnight, spotlighted by a street lamp. Bond stopped and reversed to meet him. There were very few other people on the streets at four in the morning and Bond had never been so thankful; this was going to get messy.

“I am not afraid of you,” said Stark, “but you are picking on me over nothing. Walk away and I won’t waste you.”

As Bond considered his offer a lone vehicle pulled up behind him and sounded their horn. “The way I see it, I need to blow off some steam and you need to have a good story to tell all your friends at your party. As far as I’m concerned, this is a win-win. I only have one question…”

“What?” The look on Stark’s face let Bond know all he needed to. The man was interested.

“What exactly are you driving?”

Stark smiled. “The frame is from Dodge, believe it or not. A model M4S. But I’ve modified it. Dodge marketed it as a prototype sports coupe. There are only four in the world, which is probably why you didn’t spot it. It’s mid-engined with a top speed of 194.8 MPH, but I tweaked it a bit. Now she’ll pull down 208. You?”

“Latest model Aston Martin DB10. 4.7 Litre V8 that makes 420 horsepower and 347 lb-ft of torque. It’s mated to a 6-speed manual transmission. Top speed: 180 MPH. But in Monte Carlo, as I’m sure you’re well aware, it’s not about speed so much as it is about handling and finesse. Yours doesn’t look like it has much... finesse.”

Stark laughed. “Well I guess we’ll see about that. What’s your name?”

“Bond. James Bond.”

“Stark. Tony Stark. Glad to meet you, Mr. Bond. Shall we make this a bit more interesting?” The cars behind them were piling up a bit, but neither man was fazed.

“Let’s.”

“Shall we say, ten thousand Euros to the winner?”

“Better make it one hundred thousand. I wouldn’t want you to lose in a small way. It would make for a terrible story for your friends.” Bond smirked at him.

“You do know how to spice up a tale, don’t you, Mr. Bond? Shall we dance?” Stark revved his engine as the cars that gathered behind them beeped a symphony of collective annoyance. It was only a matter of time before the police joined in and they’d both be back in the station.

“On my mark,” said Bond. “Three… Two… One… MARK!”

Engines whined and tires squealed as each man took off down the streets of Monte Carlo, following the course of one of the most famous tracks in Grand Prix history.


	2. Ready...

Managing the climb to the casino wasn’t difficult. There were only two lorries and a few small compact cars to dodge, nothing terrible. The roundabout at Sainte Devote was notorious for gettting a bit clogged and slowing the racers down when the Monaco track was in full effect, but this was two gentlemen racers and a friendly wager, plus, it was four in the morning; none barred their way. Stark was beaten by Bond on the straight-away to the exchange; he wasn’t expecting the DB10 to be so thoroughly impressive.

“JARVIS,” said Stark, “get me everything on James Bond, British mystery guy.”

“Seeking the information now, sir,” replied JARVIS. The dashboard screen went dark a moment before the search programming came up. Stark up-shifted into 6th gear at the straight-away before Beau Rivage. The climb to the casino was intense and there were more innocent bystanders to avoid as Bond’s taillights continued to vex him.

“I should have bet him a million,” Stark muttered to himself. “He might have backed down.”

“I should think he wouldn’t have, sir,” said JARVIS placidly. “He seems to be someone that can’t be easily found.”

“What do you mean?”

“I show no one matching his description in any British governmental identification database. He seems to be no one.”

“He’s not no one, JARVIS,” said Stark. The Massenet turn was upon him before he realized it and he hastily downshifted to 4th gear. “He came out of the same police station I did. Start there. Use imaging recognition programming. Match the mugshot they have on file with a name.” Stark leaned into the curve, narrowly missing a Citroen and down-shifted to 3rd gear but passing Bond in the meantime. The man had gotten stuck behind a taxi just at the end of the turn. “HA!” shouted Stark as he flew past the silver DB10.

“Excellent driving, sir and an equally excellent suggestion, searching now,” said JARVIS. It took only a moment for the computer to come back with a mugshot photo of the man calling himself James Bond.

“That’s him,” said Stark, risking a flickering glance at the screen as he dodged between two Smart cars and another lorry in front of the Casino. He up-shifted to 5th gear and held his breath. The next turn he took was a narrow street, usually opened up for the Grand Prix, but on every other day of the year, it was a single lane road with parked cars on one side and steel bollards on the other to protect the people on the concrete. And it was a one-way street. And the direction of the traffic did NOT match the direction Stark and Bond were going.

The red NO ENTRY sign flew past his vision as Stark’s heart went into his throat. There was a single set of headlights ahead of him as he tore down the tiny street.

“You will collide with the oncoming vehicle unless you take immediate action, sir.”

Tony had three choices: play chicken with a stranger and hope he or she left enough room for him to squeeze by, crash into a parked car and have the innocent person crash into him followed closely by Bond who surely wouldn’t be able to stop in time, or crash into a metal bollard and pray he could still keep going despite almost certain front-end damage. A thought occurred to him: “We had the front end of this thing sealed with my new polymer, right?”

“Yes sir, we did,” replied JARVIS. “The entire car, in fact.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear,” he said, down-shifted to third gear, and rammed a bollard full-on. There was a slight ping and a jolt as the car struck the metal and Stark grimaced at the noise it made as it scraped against the undercarriage, but otherwise the car was unharmed as he went up on the step opposite the curbing, the impetus automatically tilting his car onto two wheels as he made his way down the walkway. At the end of it, he took out another bollard, came off the curbing, and set the car down on all four wheels again, just in time to make the turn for Mirabeau.

“YES!” cheered Stark as he re-focused on the course. He down-shifted to first gear to make the turn, feeling the pull of the G-forces as the car swung wide and almost went off the road.

As soon as he recovered, he was slightly annoyed to find that he had basically plowed the road for Bond who followed his exact path, managing to not only avoid the vehicle, but also to balance his car artfully on two wheels to the same point Stark had left. He straightened himself in his seat and asked: “What do the cops have on him? What’s he calling himself here?”

“James Bond, sir,” said JARVIS, sounding disappointed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” muttered Stark. “What was he in for?”

“Assault and battery, sir,” said JARVIS. Its tone was almost slightly derisive. “Apparently, Mr. Bond was involved in an altercation at a local tavern. He broke the bones of six different people before the police came and arrested him. It seems he was quite intoxicated. He’d spent the better part of two days in their solitary cells before his release tonight.”

“How was his release arranged? Who posted his bail?” Stark’s rear view display was filled with nothing but Aston Martin grill. Bond was on his heels, quite literally, and was pacing him with every turn he made. But he couldn’t go any faster because of the single-lane road and the next big turn ahead. He was better off staying in first gear with the needle buried than risking an up-shift. But the price he paid for this was Bond in his back door. Stark shook off the thought of Bond driving right over him to win and focused on the road ahead. The hairpin turn at the Grand Hotel was his biggest worry just then and it was coming up fast.

“Unlimited Shipping, LTD posted his bail and paid his fines,” said JARVIS.

“Who the hell are they?”

“They seem to be… one moment, sir,” said JARVIS.

“JARVIS?” It was unlike the computer to hesitate in answering his questions and when it came back, Stark was even more puzzled about the man in the silver car.

“It seems you’re racing against an operative for the British Secret Service, sir.”

“He’s a spy?”

“It seems so,” said JARVIS.

The hairpin turn at the Grand Hotel was hellish. You couldn’t take it at 200 MPH. Even the F1 cars had to slow to practically a crawl. The fastest they could manage was 70 or so. But it wasn’t Grand Prix season and the track was a regular single-lane road again with real people on it. Stark slowed to 53 MPH and took the turn as carefully as he dared, veering wide.

A silver Aston Martin DB10 drifted in front of him and overtook him on the turn, shimmying a little as it came out of the curve. Fortunately, no one had been traveling the opposite direction.

“Fuck me,” Stark whispered, the moment’s shock passing quickly into anger, frustration, and more than a little admiration. “This guy is amazing. Remind me to call Fury and let him know about him.”

“Duly noted, sir,” replied JARVIS.

The cars sped on for Turn 7, Portier, and the tunnel.


	3. Steady...

Stark couldn’t get out of first until he got past Portier. Once there, he buried the pedal and chased with passion after James Bond, British spy. He couldn’t help but grin at the thought of telling all his friends and fellow party-goers that not only did the charges not stick, but that he managed to get into a street race with a foreign assassin who drove like a-

“Whoa!” shouted Stark as both he and Bond were forced to slam on the brakes before the tunnel. There were roadworks happening at the tunnel’s entrance and, as most governing bodies have found, it was much easier to get those roadworks done during the time of least traffic volume. Stark felt his heartbeat in his ears as he watched Bond tear around the utility vehicles and workers.

“Roadworks ahead, sir,” chimed in JARVIS.

Stark gave the dashboard display a dirty look. “Yeah, got that.”

Stark swallowed hard and dodged past them, startling the road workers and causing more than one to jump to the side for safety. Stark could see them cursing and throwing various rude gestures at them in his rear display. “Everyone accounted for?”

“Affirmative, sir,” replied JARVIS.

“Then let’s go get him,” said Stark, up-shifting into fifth gear and reveling in the whine of the engine in the tunnel. His car’s nose found Bond’s tail lights in a matter of moments and soon they were out of the tunnel with the chicane coming up fast.

There was no way to see around the sudden dangerous bend in the road and coming out of the tunnel at full speed hurtling toward that bend made it one of the more tricky spots in the Formula 1 race. Fortunately, it was dark in the tunnel and dark outside, the street lights providing the only illumination in both areas, so it was less of a risk to speed around that corner. The downside was, because of the dark, anyone coming the opposite direction would not expect to see two sets of headlights careening toward them using up both sides of the road.

Stark drove on the opposite side of the road, meeting Bond alongside, and rolled down his window to wave and smile. He up-shifted again and zoomed past. All would have been victory and roses, if he had not found himself inconveniently in the path of an SUV. He was a dead man: ahead was certain death, swerving around the SUV and the chicane simultaneously was physically impossible without becoming flames and twisted metal, and Bond was behind him in the opposite lane - he had nowhere to go and the window to make his decision was incalculably small and getting smaller.

“Brakes!” he shouted as his foot met the pedals. His tires squealed. He jolted against his seatbelt with the sudden loss of momentum. Bond was a silver blur to his side. Thankfully, the headlights in front of him reduced in size until he got room enough to swerve back into the proper flow of traffic to trail Bond around the curve.

During the race, all the streets involved get closed down, up to and including the road they now attempted to get on. The majority of the asphalt was taken up by a tented structure that, during the day, served as a quay-side restaurant. Huge concrete and pebble planters lined one side of it, narrowing the traffic access to a quarter of what it was on racing day. Stark and Bond had no hope of coming around this curve with any kind of lazy driving technique; this had to be a precision maneuver. They both downshifted to fourth and snaked their way past the small opening, Stark clipping the back end of his car on the edge on one of the planters.

The quay was a busy one: huge yachts streaked past on the left side of Stark’s vision, including Stark’s own, he assumed. But their road wasn’t a clear path: racks of canoes, golf carts, cargo, all of it lined either side of the marina road as they sped along, each tiny little adjustment of their steering threatening to cause them to collide with the objects which were barely lit by their headlights. Stark had never felt more focused. He wanted to catch Bond up, pass him, win. He couldn’t afford any more mistakes.

“The police have erected a road block along the end of the quay, sir. You and Mr. Bond are headed straight for it, past the final chicane and before La Rascasse” said JARVIS.

“Damn it,” said Stark. “Look like our fun’s over.” Off to his left he caught a glimpse of his yacht and was struck with an idea.

“Does Unlimited Shipping have a yacht in Port Hercule?” He down-shifted to turn into Tabac, narrowly missing a stack of crates.

“Yes, sir,” replied JARVIS. “The local port authority lists it at the opposite end of the port from where you currently are.”

“Good. Perfect,” said Stark as he up-shifted once more toward Piscine. “Blow it up. Send one of the new Whistler Fire Rockets from the test suit we were going to try out on Monday. Aim for its waterline. Then call the police and report an explosion on the end of the port.”

“As you order, sir,” said JARVIS. “I took the liberty of scanning the ship for personnel. Mr. Bond seems to have traveled here on his own. The vessel is unoccupied and, if I may say, isn’t very big. Hardly worth the moniker 'yacht'.”

“Don’t be a snob, JARVIS,” said Stark as a small boat at the far end of the little port exploded in flames at its aft.

As he veered around the curve of Piscine a moment later, JARVIS informed him that the roadblock had been removed in favor of attending to the fire at the port. But Stark was too busy down-shifting to make the curve at the end of the chicane to thrill at the news. All he could see was the persistently annoying image of Bond’s tail lights framed by more concrete and pebble planters and the occasional row of low concrete bollards.

He waited until just before La Rascasse to make his move. The road was clear: no cops, no oncoming traffic, no nothing. Stark up-shifted and attempted to push past Bond. The DB10 came over to block him but Stark slipped by, sideswiping a planter in doing so. They flicked back and forth with one another, both men doggedly determined not to lose. Soon it would be too late to do anything as the turn came closer and closer. After it, there would be a small space of road before the final turn back onto Boulevard Albert 1er and the finish line. Of course, that would take them right past the police station, but Stark and Bond would have to worry about that later.

Stark pushed the car to its limits and just edged out Bond before the turn itself, skittering past his nose and cutting the corner of the turn. His momentum took him clear across the road as a police vehicle dodged him to travel between he and Bond on its way toward the port and the fire. For a split second, Stark thought the cop would change his priorities and chase after them, but all Stark had time to see before the last turn was the brake lights on the police vehicle.

“That was close,” said Stark. “Is he coming after us, JARVIS?”

“I believe he is, sir,” replied the computer.

“Damn,” said Stark. He watched Bond behind him and weighed their options. “Alright, let’s win and then we bolt. I’ll collect later. It’s not like he’s going to sail away anytime soon.” He put the hammer down and sped across the line and kept going, Bond’s headlights fading into the distance and the police’s blue flashing lights further away than that.

“Good luck, pal,” said Stark as he turned off and headed back to his penthouse and the party that was no doubt in full swing.


	4. BrOTP!

“And so, I did what any other reasonable, rational person would do: I blew up his boat,” said Stark as he held court in the lavish apartment that overlooked the Port Hercule. He gestured toward the collection of emergency vehicles at the end of the quay. A large group of the party-goers gave a reckless drunken cheer.

“But did you win the race?” someone asked.

“Did I win the race? Does the Pope shit in the woods? Is a bear Catholic?” retorted Stark. “Of course I did! Speaking of which, that bastard owes me a hundred grand! Shit!”

A collective laugh went up and Stark snapped his fingers at a waiter, pointed at his glass as he handed it over to him and remarked: “This drink is too dry. Make it wetter.”

“Allow me,” said a somewhat familiar voice. A drink was proffered over his shoulder.

“I don’t like taking things,” he said as he turned toward the speaker, hands splayed open.

James Bond had him by a good four inches in height and his eyes were crystalline blue. The spy’s jaw was set, but a bemused grin graced his face. “Will you take it if I offer you a check for one hundred thousand Euros?”

Stark smiled. “Those are terms I can accept,” he said. He looked down at the drink and back up at Bond. “Should I be wary of poisons or anything, Mr. Bond?”

Bond chuckled. “You’ve done your homework, Mr. Stark.”

“And you’ve crashed my highly exclusive party.”

Bond raised an eyebrow. “I challenge you to name any one person at this party - first and last name, if you please.”

Stark looked around, his mouth a moue of chagrin. “Alright. You got me.” He held out his hand. “Excellent driving, by the way.”

“I find it comes in handy from time to time.” Bond took his hand and shook it.

“I bet,” said Stark. He clapped a hand over Bond’s shoulder and guided him to the balcony for a better view of the port. “Let me ask you something: have you ever considered a moonlighting career as an Avenger?”

“That depends,” said Bond, casting his view over the port and the smoldering remnants of his vessel. “Does the job come with a new ship?”


End file.
